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From the Archive: Reverse Order

By David W. DunlapFeb. 3, 2010Feb. 3, 2010

The world has long known it as one of the most definitive of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moments”: a silhouetted pedestrian leaping over a puddle behind the Gare St.-Lazare in Paris, his figure almost perfectly mirrored in the water and echoed again by the silhouetted dancer on a nearby poster.

As hard as it is to tear your eyes away from a Magnum photo, the back of the print often tells an important story of its own. On the occasion of the sale and transfer of Magnum’s print collection, the archive director, Matthew Murphy, took time this week to decipher some of those cryptic trails.

The meaning of “HCB” is obvious enough, though Magnum photographers’ codes are more typically the first two letters of their surnames plus the first letter of their given names. Thus, Elliott Erwitt is ERE, Eve Arnold is ARE and Gueorgui Pinkhassov is – well, better not to ask.

The Gare St.-Lazare picture came from Cartier-Bresson’s fourth story (“0004”) of the year “1932.” “W” means the image was originally a black-and-white negative; “C” that this particular print was made from a 4-by-5-inch copy negative; “00002” that it was the second sheet of copy film for story No. 4 of 1932.

Handwritten notations on the upper right corner are even more interesting. They seem to indicate that this print was part of a reference set that photo researchers could use when a Magnum client requested something along the lines of “that picture in ‘Decisive Moment’ where a guy is jumping over a puddle.”

A 1963 photo by Bob Adelman (ADB) of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., speaks implicitly to the importance of the subject matter. This one print alone was consigned over time to at least two dozen clients to be considered for publication. Sadly, the five-digit consignment numbers are mute today. Mr. Murphy said the in-house paperwork was thrown out years ago, so there is no way of knowing exactly where Mr. Adelman’s print went, except to Newsday, which left its own publication sticker on the back — not unlike the hotel decals that were once pasted on well-traveled suitcases.

The print also illustrates the challenge faced by any photo indexer: in what file does this picture belong? As the reverse side shows, this image has been categorized variously over time, by the agency and its clients, as “King, Martin L., Personalities File,” “Portraits,” “M. L. King,” “Selma,” “Blacks” and “Selma March 63.”

No matter the taxonomic system, just about every print carries a key restriction for which Magnum is known: “Photographs may not be cropped or altered in any way without prior written approval by Magnum Photos.” To ensure that the photo editor or art director understood the seriousness of the stipulation, Magnum declared that violators would have to pay at least twice the usage fee.

Nearly 200,000 Magnum prints are now housed at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin. There is, of course, no way of saying how many prints may still sit in the filing cabinets of newspapers or magazines to which they were consigned.

“A lot of publications were very, very great at requesting materials but very, very poor in returning them,” said Mr. Murphy, who was still processing prints when he started working at Magnum in 2001. The operation is now entirely digital.

Mr. Murphy can personally vouch for one picture that the Harry Ransom Center wasn’t given: an old print mounted on a battered board, stuck on the back of which was a competition submission form with Mr. Erwitt’s name on it.

“It was some kind of photo contest entered by a young Elliott Erwitt,” said Mr. Murphy, who described it as his greatest find as a researcher. “I took that right out and gave it to Elliot. I had to.